


we kiss in the shadows

by altilis



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 19:40:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5598364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, Vulcan is a primitive planet just on the cusp of the gunpowder age in a galaxy where the Federation's prime directive is a little flexible. Leonard McCoy opts for a medical mission stationed with one of Vulcan's royal houses; Spock is a lowly prince consort in a loveless marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we kiss in the shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sullacat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullacat/gifts).



> The more accurate summary is: "Anna and the King" AU.
> 
> HAPPY YULE/NEW YEARS TO [SULLACAT](HTTP://SULLACAT.TUMBLR.COM) this is super late and thank you for being so patient with me, not just with this but, like, everything.

“This is where I drop you off,” the pilot tells him, and Leonard does a double take to the rocky red landscape and the tall stone walls around the shuttle.

“Here?” he asks. “Where am I--”

“Look, the gates are opening.” The pilot points to the tall iron gates swinging inside, dragging through a fine layer of sand and kicking up dust. “You’d better get in before they close them again.”

“But--”

“Good luck!” The pilot gives him a winning smile and a thumbs up. That must be his cue. Going back into the passenger compartment, grumbling about remote assignments, Leonard hefts his bag over his shoulder and hops out the door into a dry, baking heat, and starts towards the gates. The walls look old and weathered, like they’ve stood for a thousand years, and maybe they have; he’d read a little bit about Vulcan before coming here, and ‘thousands of years of medieval strife’ seems to what little he’s already seen.

The gates funnel him through a narrow stone passage, thankfully shaded, and when he turns the corner, Leonard’s prepared to see anything--but not a garden. A little bit more prickly and foreign than he’s used to back home, but a garden nonetheless, with arrangements of flowers and cacti separated by artful sand-and-rock arrangements, lining a wide sandstone boulevard that leads up to the biggest house Leonard has ever seen in person. 

House. It’s a damn palace, Leonard tells himself, and there’s the princess coming out to greet him, just like the paperwork says she would. She waits on the marbled veranda until Leonard comes up the stairs to greet her. “Doctor McCoy,” she says in a finely accented voice, giving him a nod of her head. “Welcome.”

“Princess T’Pring,” Leonard bows, just like the pamphlet said, but comes up a little quickly. “I’m sorry I’m late. There was a sandstorm--”

“I know,” she says curtly, “it passed us not too long before your arrival.” She gestures to the inside of the house through a large, open archway, flanked by two towering glass doors which open up onto long, wide hallways lit through diffuse sky lights. “Would you like some water?” 

Leonard can’t ignore the tacky scratch of his throat, not after she says that; he grins sheepishly. “I’d love that.”

She leads him into the palace, down the long hallways, and it seems all the rooms are thrown open: as they walk Leonard can peak into rooms filled with fabrics, or jewels, or books, or sculptures, and if he looks up he can see the stained glass filtering out the yellow-orange sun.

They step into a large, open room that looks over the side of the palace, a narrow strip of colorful garden protected by wall and shrub, highlighted by the quiet, pleasant trilling of a group of birds in a shaded, thatched enclosure. She brings him to sit at a low stone table with long, blue cushions to sit at, already set with two large pictures of water with slices of green fruit and a tiered tray of small, powdery cookies. 

Leonard sits, setting his bag on the ground beside him, tries not to gorge, he does. But he still drinks one mug straight through, and T’Pring, to her credit, waits with the pitcher in her hand to refill it a second time. The water has a slight sour tang, but it soothes his parched throat, and that’s all that matters.

“This is quite a house you have here,” Leonard starts, because he’s not so sure how this part is supposed to go: she’s a princess, but he’s an off-worlder, and nobody has a definitive way to deal with the Vulcans. Try not to get beheaded or disemboweled, they told him, like Leonard is supposed to know how to side-step that. (As long as it’s better than his divorce.) “I read that, uh, you have a couple children…?”

“Eleven,” she says, and sips from her own mug. “You will meet them soon, as per your mission.”

“Right, of course.”

“But I would like you to meet my husbands, too,” she says, “and perhaps you can extend your medical expertise to them as well, Doctor.”

Leonard has about a second to think, wait, no, this wasn’t in his mission and could get him one step closer to “beheaded or disemboweled” if Vulcan politics are anything to go by, but T’Pring’s soft voice and her hard eyes keep him from protesting. He takes another large gulp of his sourwater and says, “Oh, yeah, of course.”

T’Pring calls out something to another archway, not the one they came through, shrouded by opaque white fabric. There’s a beat, then a man pushes aside the fabric, peeking in. He shares a few words with T’Pring, then he steps in. Another man follows him in, and another, and another. Leonard’s eyes widen as six men, tall and muscular and each armed with a small jeweled dagger at the waist of their loose pants, step into the parlor--and a seventh joins them, but he’s shorter than the rest, more Leonard’s height, a little smoother, though it’s hard to tell because he wears a silken jacket, while the rest are shirtless. 

“My husbands,” T’Pring says, and gestures to each of them separate with a delicate movement of her hand, “Saikus, Dulik, Soval, Jumn, Kejol, Timoc, and Spock.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Leonard says, because what else is he supposed to say? 

“All but one of them has seen combat and injury, if you would like some first-hand accounts of our field medicine for your report.”

“Uh, sure,” Leonard agrees, though what he’s read doesn’t count as medicine. All but one, she said, though, and Leonard can guess who is the odd one out: he can see scars and old wounds on the torsos of the first sixth, but not the seventh, who looks like the little brother that doesn’t want to be there; he’s the only one not looking at Leonard.

“My husbands will retrieve our children, now, and you can meet them as well.”

Another sip of the sourwater. “That would be great.”

“And Spock will take your bag to your quarters, which I will show you, soon.” T’Pring says, and then she calls out something in Vulcan: but Spock was looking at them before T’Pring addressed him. He darts forward, collects Leonard’s bag without catching his eye, and leaves. The other men follow him out the same archway, a little less rushed and making conversation among themselves.

She’s not joking about the eleven children, Leonard finds out, and fuck if Leonard is going to remember all of these names.

\--

Medical technology in the Federation is such that when people come in looking for a doctor - even in the ER - that’s usually the only wound they have, and doctors like Leonard can fix it up so that you never knew it happened.

This is not the case on Vulcan. T’Pring’s husbands have their fair share of scarred-over wounds from dodging blades, spears, melee explosives. In their rudimentary understanding of Standard, Leonard gets that T’Pring, or T’Prings fiefdom, gets into a lot of disputes with its neighbors, usually over water or mineral rights. It sounds quaint, and then Leonard remembers that he’s stuck in the middle of it, and not all of the clans here are so keen on visitors from off-planet.

Then there’s Spock. 

The man -- he asks Spock how old he is and Spock pauses and answers, “Twenty-five,” so he is a man, despite the fact every bone in Leonard’s body screams that Spock’s a “KID” -- is the only one with smooth, pale skin, untouched by blade or spear; his hands aren’t rough; he’s a little near-sighted. But he knows Standard so much better than the others, and Leonard’s grateful that this checkup isn’t so much of a struggle as it is an actual, regular check-up. There’s a couple of old, faded bruises here and there, but they live in a palace made of stone, and it’s a hard life, so when Spock says he bumped into something chasing after the children, Leonard believes him.

“You have any chronic pain?” he asks, going down the checklist on the PADD. “You know, pain that happens every day, or all the time?”

Spock is still and quiet for a long moment, eyes intent on the mug of water between his hands, then he shakes his head. “No.” 

“You sure? No backpain, headaches?”

“I am certain,” Spock says, too quickly. Leonard has been a physician long enough to know when his patients are lying to him, but his mission is scheduled for four months; he can wait this out. 

“Well, if you do, you know where to call.”

“Yes, Doctor.” 

\--

Spock calls soon after his check-up, and right after Leonard is done spending three days with all eleven children. The first, he comes right after dinner and asks Leonard about the PADD, then the tricorder.

The second time -- two days after the first -- he asks about the communicator where it lies folded shut on Leonard’s dresser. “What is it?” he says, leaning close but not touching it when Leonard sets it on the kitchen-office-all-purpose table.

“It lets me talk with the ships in orbit, if I need to,” he explains, going back to writing -- actually writing, what else is he going to use his time on -- his reports on a long sheet of rough paper that scratches nicely underneath the fountain pen they had given him.

“Do you have another one?”

“Yeah, a spare in my bag.”

“Could I--” Spock looks up, eyes wide, hesitating a little, “could I examine this overnight? In my own quarters?”

Leonard blinks. “Uh,” he tries to think of a reason Spock can’t and fails. “Yeah, sure. Just try to bring it to me in one piece, okay?”

\--

He went to college. He knows how guys act with each other; he doesn’t expect anything less out of T’Pring’s husbands, but there’s that fine line of cultural-alien sensitivity and thinking that her husbands are, hand to God, dicks.

At first he sees it in the garden, when the children are eager to show him what they can do in terms of running, climbing, playing with toy versions of weapons Leonard has seen on display in the dining hall. Spock, Kejol, and Timoc watch over them all from the front veranda. Spock has a book, and the other two are tossing some thatched ball between them.

Leonard looks away for a minute - one of the children is climbing up one of the fruit trees - and he looks back just in time to see Kejol cuff Spock over the head, hard enough to knock him out of the carved chaise-lounge, and Timoc comes over to crowd him as he’s on the ground, scrambling to get up.

A child pulls on his hand, distracting him, and when he looks up, Spock is gone, and Kejol lounges in his stolen seat.

 

And then, dinner. The dining hall is broken up in two sections, an “adults” table and a “kids” table, though two husbands sit at the kids table every night, a rotating partnership of babysitters, just to make sure they don’t get too loud and rowdy. One night, T’Pring herself goes to sit with the children and her first husband, and Leonard gets to see how the others interact, up close.

Most of the words they use are Vulcan; Leonard’s getting better about hearing the cadence of it, but it’s still so foreign, so devoid of meaning for him. But raised voices and insults seem to be universal, and soon they’re flying across the table, most of them met with grins and laughter.

Then Spock says something, cold and deadpan, and they all turn on him; there’s no laughter here. Spock nudges away the man sitting next to him with a little too much elbow and he’s struck across the face. “Hey,” Leonard says, frowning, “what was that for?”

“Is there a problem?” T’Pring asks, suddenly standing behind him, and Leonard watches all of the men at the table straighten up, murmur refusals and acknowledgements--and then Spock says something that same cold tone, not looking at her, looking down into his glass of water. T’Pring steps around the table and knocks the glass out of his hand, and says something with her voice raised just so, before pointing towards the archway. Spock rises from the table and leaves.

The dinner continues, as if nothing happened.

\--

Leonard's not exactly sure whether this is something he should include in his report, because his mission is supposed to be about medicine and health and ultimately helping the Federation make in-roads on this back-water planet, and something tells Leonard that describing the Vulcans as complete dicks isn't going to help the cause.

But the ethical dilemma still nags at him as he returns to his quarters, sipping bourbon from a flask with old, worn initials (and a little too much family baggage). He stares out the window towards the lanterns hanging in the garden, swaying softly in the desert breeze over a patch of pink-white nightblossoms.

There's a knock at the door.

Leonard gets up from his seat at the bay window, sets the flask down on the table, and answers the door. "Spock," he says in surprise, "do you need something?"

Spock looks up at him briefly, then to what he's holding in his hands: three pieces that look suspiciously like the communicator he had leant the man. "I tried to piece it back together," he says sheepishly, clutching them tight, "but there's a seal on the side…"

Leonard shakes his head, chuckling. "It's all right, Spock. I guess that's why they gave me a spare. You wanna come in?"

The question earns a fleeting glance over Leonard's shoulder into the room, then down both sides of the hallway, back to Leonard. He hesitates, and Leonard wonders that maybe he shouldn't have offered if Spock is so uncomfortable with the question -- "If I am permitted," Spock says finally.

"Of course you are, otherwise I wouldn't have opened the door," Leonard says, standing aside and letting Spock into the living room. Spock steps in, looking around as if he hasn't been here before. He's staring at the flask after Leonard turns around from closing the door, but then he looks up to see Leonard staring at him, and he moves over to the window instead, looking down at the garden like Leonard had been doing.

Leonard picks up the flask from the table, caps it, and tucks it away into one of the kitchen cupboards. "What happened at dinner?" he asks, stepping into the sitting area and sitting on the low sofa. It's comfortable if he arranges some of the pillows the right way, but that takes a lot of time, and Leonard has other concerns.

"…disagreements," Spock murmurs, and he steps over to join Leonard on the sofa, folding his legs underneath him as he curls up in the opposite corner of the sofa where all the throw pillows had been--well, thrown. Tonight he wears a dark blue vest that barely meets the high waist of his loose pants, and while at dinner it had been buttoned and wrapped, right now the front is open, revealing a spread of chest hair. (Leonard tries not to stare.)

"Do you guys always have disagreements like that?" Leonard asks, shifting to look at Spock. "I saw you this afternoon, too."

"Often," Spock admits, idle hands picking at a thread at the corner of a pillow. "It's the nature of the arrangement; I am the youngest, and the newest to the household."

"How long ago did you marry the princess?"

"It should be almost a year now."

"And they're still picking on you? Initiation lasts that long around here?" Leonard asks, intending it for it to be rhetorical; Spock shrugs. "Well, I don't know how everybody else in the Federation does it, but Earth tends to be…a little less complicated, you know?"

"I don't." Spock's fully focused on him now: not looking for distraction around the room. "Could you explain?"

"About Earth marriages?"

"About Earth."

Leonard runs a hand through his hair, at a loss for where to start. He thinks of Georgia and hot, sticky summers, ivy crawling over old stone walls, the damp fog of San Francisco's space port, music and jazz and gambling barges, and he knows that no matter what he says, it's not going to do the planet justice.

"Well," he starts, hesitates, continues: "It's very wet."

\--

Spock comes by every few days, asking him about Earth, and Leonard explains, because if he's honest with himself he's a little homesick, yearning for books he can actually read and children that aren't freakishly strong and fast, and maybe, too, the peace of waking up every day and not having to worry about nomads armed to the teeth or soldiers on the move.

Leonard doesn't actually see these things, up close anyway; but if he squints out into the desert from the third-floor patio--where T'Pring likes to have breakfast --he can see a line of dustclouds in the distance, and she'll say something along the lines of 'Oh, so-and-so is on the move again.'

Eventually, Spock asks Leonard about food. He shouldn't be surprised: Spock eats a lot at meal times, mostly because none of the others seem to drag him into conversation, so he sits quietly and cleans his plate two, maybe three times, of the steamed grains and spiced vegetables and lightly salted meat. But Leonard tells him about fried catfish, and grits, and sweet peach pie, and what makes a perfect sweet tea with lemon.

"Is that what you have in your flask?" Spock asks, looking pointedly at Leonard's pocket (at least, he hopes that's it).

"This?" Leonard reaches into his pocket, shifting on the sofa, to take out the flask; the moment he has it out, Spock snatches it from his grip for inspection. "That's--ah, no, that's bourbon."

"Bourbon?"

"It's an alcoholic drink. From around where I'm from. Local specialty."

"May I try?"

Leonard shrugs. "If you want."

Spock fiddles with the cap ontop, finally getting it open; he sniffs it for a moment, then takes a sip--then tilts his head, the picture of curiosity. "…I expected it to be stronger."

"Hey, that’s not what it’s for,” Leonard reaches out and pulls the flask from Spock’s hand, pulling Spock a little closer when he’s slow to let go. Suddenly, he’s aware of Spock’s knees turned so close, almost touching Leonard’s thigh, the way his hands fold in his lap, the soft, spicy warmth of his presence that welcomes him with open curiosity rather than the guarded indifference of all the other adults in the house. “It’s just--a good taste of home.”

“Do you miss your home?”

“I mean--” There’s reasons why he left that he doesn’t want to go into; Spock doesn’t deserve to suffer that conversation. “Don’t you?” So he deflects.

Spock looks aside, a muscle tightening in his jaw. “...this is my home, now,” he says quietly. “It’s better if I do not--indulge. It’s better that i forget.”

“Forget? Now, I don’t think that’s the right answer, either. Listen,” he places a hand on Spock’s knee, squeezing gently for comfort, “it looks like a lot of bad things can happen out here, war and disease and all of that--you know it better than me--but you need to have some good memories around to keep you going through all of that. Until you start making your own--Spock, is something wrong?”

Spock’s cheeks are a bright green, which makes him look a little ill; Leonard’s brows furrow, worried. “I’m fine, Doctor.”

“You sure?” Leonard raises his hand to press the back of his palm against Spock’s forehead--for all the good that will do to his instincts, Vulcans always run so hot. But the touch just intensifies the color on Spock’s cheeks, until Spock rolls to his feet, off the sofa.

“I must go,” Spock declares, straightening his vest, and before Leonard can protest he lets himself out.

Leonard rubs his brow, a little confused.

\--

“Doctor, there is something I wish to discuss with you,” T’Pring says at the end of one of his lessons to the children, after telling them all how important it is to wash their hands, either with water from the palace or the disinfecting salts out by the stables. 

“Sure, what’s on your mind?” Leonard says, wiping his hands of the salt on a spare rag, then using the same rag on the glass jar that had been part of the demonstration.

“In my study, please.”

Leonard looks up. “All right,” he says, a little surprised, and packs up the rest of the bag before following T’Pring to her office. The room sits at the back of the palace, two layers deep with its own sitting area, but the actual desk and important maps lie behind two steel-and-glass doors, obscuring a visitor’s view and (if the steel is any indication) keeping the princess safe from people she doesn’t want to see.

She sits on one side of a thin glass desk bookended by twisted glass sculptures, and Leonard sits on the other, and waits for her to speak first. 

“What training do you have in reproductive medicine, Doctor?”

Leonard blinks. “I’ve helped deliver a couple of babies, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, that is not my implication.”

“Then you’re going to have to explain it to me.”

“The question concerns fertility.” Her chair is no more than a cushioned bench with low scrolled arms, carved out of a dark grey wood, but she sits so straight, her palms flat on her thigh, and Leonard has never felt so common in his life, like T’Pring does have divine right to sit there and rule and Leonard is just a passing amusement. “Not mine; that is not in doubt.”

“Of course,” Leonard says, holding himself from thinking, yeah, eleven children proves that point pretty well.

“But I am concerned about my youngest husband.”

“Spock?”

“Yes. We have been married for an entire harvest cycle, and our coupling has not led to any children.”

“Well,” Leonard scratches the back of his neck, trying to think about how to phrase this delicately. “How often do you--”

“That is not the issue, Doctor; I fear something may be wrong with his capabilities. Answer me this: do you have the ability to test this, to quantify it?”

“I--yeah, we can do something with my tricorder, but it’s a little invasive, privacy-wise, I’ll have to ask--”

“He will permit you to do whatever you like,” T’Pring interrupts, and stands, smoothing the front of her long dress. “Thank you; this is the technology I intended to find and I have found it. Now, I hope you will find me a solution to this problem of ours.”

Leonard stands, taking this as meaning the conversation is over. “I’ll arrange some time with him.”

\--

Spock doesn’t seem to be surprised when Leonard approaches him about the subject, only vaguely disappointed, as if he would have been able to avoid this issue - or at least that’s what five weeks trying to learn Vulcan emotions has told him.

They arrange some time after dinner, after the children have all been put to sleep and after Spock finishes what he calls his “evening tasks”--at first, Leonard assumed this had something to do with T’Pring, it’s not the first he’s heard it, but now he suspects he’s got it all wrong. (Again.) (Great job, he tells himself)

When Leonard lets Spock into his quarters, Spock only lingers on his feet long enough for Leonard to close the door, and when Leonard turns back around, Spock has already folded himself up onto a familiar corner of the couch, peering at the PADD, on and glowing, where it lies in Leonard’s usual seat. 

“So,” Leonard says as he lowers himself onto the couch, picking up the PADD. “I’m going to ask you some personal questions, okay?” Spock nods. “How often do you have sex with your wife?”

Spock blinks at him, then looks towards the lamp hanging over the living room, his eyes shifting as he recalls. “Once a month? On average.”

“On average?”

“It has not been constant through time.”

Leonard frowns a little. “Okay, different question: when was the last time you had sex with her?”

“Two months ago.”

“Ah.” This is straying dangerously close to home, but Leonard forces himself to focus on the case at hand: this is a patient, and he’s a doctor, and if he can’t fix it there’s no one on the planet who can, apparently. Not in a scientific, medical way that doesn’t involve ointments and oils and spells--which he hasn’t seen in action but he knows there’s an apothecary room in this palace, lined with bottles of pickled rats and the makings of the disinfecting salts, along with the gunpowder, poison, and spices he hears so much about. 

“Do you know T’Pring is worried about you? About whether you’re capable of fathering children?”

“I believe you’re mistaken.”

“We just talked--”

“She is not worried about me, Leonard; she’s worried about the number of heirs she has. I am merely a vessel to further her goals in that respect. If I fail, then she will merely find another man, and discard me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I’ve heard her inquiries to neighboring kingdoms. It’s only a matter of time before she loses patience.” 

“Then we’d better make sure you’re okay.” Leonard leans over and sets the PADD aside, so he can focus all of his attention on Spock; he doesn’t need the questionnaire for this. “So the times you have been together: was it always with the aim to have intercourse for children?”

“That is her goal.”

“And yours?”

“My intentions are always to leave her satisfied, however I can.” Spock doesn’t quite look at him through this entire conversation, tugging at the corner of a throw pillow again. “She has not complained about that aspect, but I use my hands and mouth more often.”

“That’s not going to lead to children, though, even in Vulcans.”

“I know.” Spock says too quickly and with a little tinge of anger, and it feels more bitter than the times Spock makes cold comments at the dinner table. “But I am not…” Spock stops, shakes his head, and doesn’t say anything more. 

“Is there something wrong when you try intercourse with her?” Leonard asks softly. “Like maintaining--”

“I am not attracted to her.”

This is not something Leonard can fix. He sighs, running a hand through his hair and wondering how else to counsel Spock, what he’s going to tell T’Pring, whether or not Starfleet wants something like this in their mission report. Maybe he should figure out what Spock’s not, first. “Are you attracted to anyone?”

Spock’s cheeks turn a bright green again, and he answers. “No.” But Leonard doesn’t really hear him, and he leans forward to check his complexion, wondering what it is he’s asking that causes this change.

“Spock, are you--”

Spock kisses him on the mouth, closed and quick and chaste, before pulling back. Leonard, dumbfounded, stares for a moment, not quite breathing for a long beat, as Spock looks to the side and murmurs, “That’s how they show affection on Earth, isn’t it?”

Leonard doesn’t remember explaining this at all. “How do you…”

“A married couple stayed with my parents when I was a child,” Spock explains, gaze still down. “They would do that, sometimes, and they look pleased afterward.”

“Of course,” Leonard clears his throat. “Of course they were pleased; it’s a pleasurable feeling.” And fuck if Leonard doesn’t realize that all at once, how much he misses being touched by someone, how weeks and weeks on this god-forsaken sand planet have made him crave a little bit of intimacy where any sort of touch would do. 

And then, that’s when Spock asks: “What else do they do on Earth?” with a soft voice and wide dark eyes, sitting a little too close to Leonard as he always does. Leonard will say it was bourbon, it was his own exhaustion, it was a mistake - but really it’s Spock’s hand on his knee, fingers sliding across thigh, leaning in with such an innocent curiosity that Leonard learns is not, in anyway, innocent. 

He doesn’t fucking care.

\--

Leonard knows he’s fucked up. 

He knows that this is the worst possible thing that could happen while he’s on assignment, and yet he doesn’t tell Spock not to visit, he doesn’t tell Spock to stop the slow strip-tease that is a Vulcan prince undressing through layers and layers, he doesn’t fucking stop himself from running his hands over Spock’s body and really learning how this patient of his reacts to sexual stimuli.

Spock is a font of quiet passion; Leonard now realizes how caged he is around T’Pring, around the other husbands, around literally everyone in the palace: in bed he’s demanding, he’s experimental, he’s curious, and sometimes his Vulcan stamina is a little too much for Leonard, doctor-scientist that he is. But Spock is also patient: he waits for Leonard to recover just enough before going on.

This is going to catch up with him, it always does, but damn if he’s not goign to enjoy it now.

\--

Dinners are the worst.

Leonard can understand some of the conversation now, familiar words being thrown about, and tonight T’Pring sits at the table, talking politics with Leonard at her right and Spock sitting at her left. The children are a little noisy tonight, but not more than normal.

T’Pring says something about the family of someone; about discussing goods and salts; and Spock interrupts: the first mistake. But he’s saying something about someone, and his voice is dripping with disdain. Leonard stares; he’s not the only one. Then T’Pring says something about marriage.

“And what do you intend to do with me?” Spock asks, switching to Standard -- and Leonard keeps thinking, why are you bringing me into this? Everyone knows it’s for his benefit - and then he looks at the other husbands, and thinks: maybe it’s to keep them out of this, too. “Are you going to throw me to the desert?”

“Not if you fulfill your duties.”

“You are asking something of me that I cannot fulfill, and you knew that coming into this marriage,” Spock says, his voice hotter and louder, and he stands from the table. “To then trap me in this arrangement and expect something more is a despicable ploy--”

“Sit down, Spock,” T’Pring snaps at him, and the other husbands are taken aback. Some are reaching for the small daggers at their waist.

“Why? Do you intend to silence me as you silenced my family? Is it the other-worlder that frightens you, T’Pring? Even they will learn of your methods.”

“Spock.” She looks up at him, where he stands, and then to her other husbands, and gives them a single nod.

The action is too much for Leonard to take in all at once; he’s blinded by the flash of Vulcan steel in the candlelight, the rush of bodies all to a singular point of hatred, but Spock moves faster than all of them: he runs through the fabric to the outside, and the other husbands take off after him, shouting warnings in Vulcan that raise the hair at the back of Leonard’s neck.

The children are quiet. T’Pring is unmoved. Leonard looks at her, clears his throat, and asks: “What’ll happen if they…”

“Disembowelment,” she says stiffly, and takes a sip from her water cup. “That is the extent of my mercy for those who attempt to disgrace me.”

Leonard swallows hard. “That’s a bit--extreme.”

“Do not think to lecture me about the severity of the punishments we have here,” T’Pring says coldly, her gaze fierce; Leonard has to look away. “This is not your land, nor your conflict; you have no understanding of how life must be arranged here.”

Leonard nods a silent agreement as he lifts his cup to his lips, and he thinks: yes, he might not understand how Vulcan works, but he knows one man who doesn’t work with it.

\--

Weeks go by. 

Leonard uses his spare communicator to touch base with a visiting starship. Fifteen minutes between winter sandstorms confirms his schedule: he’s leaving in three weeks. They’ll send a shuttle. No souvenirs.

\--

Sometimes he dreams about Spock, about the quiet curiosity and the way his fingers would skim over Leonard’s temple.

\--

He’s packing when he hears something hit the window. He gets up from the table just in time to see the glass panes fold him and Spock tumbling in, dirty and dusty and much tanner than when Leonard last saw him.

“Spock!” Leonard rushes forward, scooping an arm around him and helping him to his feet. “What are you doing here?” 

Spock coughs, but he stands well enough, and doesn’t pull from Leonard’s half-embrace. “I wanted to see if you were still here,” he says softly, “and speak with you, if you were.”

“I’m leaving tonight, I’m sorry,” Leonard says, cupping Spock’s cheek with his other hand. “You should get out of here, if the others know you’re here they’ll--”

“I know.” And he kisses Leonard, just as quick and chaste as the first time. Leonard wants to return it, but he holds himself back - just barely - and sighs quietly, curling his fingers in Spock’s (now a bit longer) black hair.

“Spock, we--I enjoyed this, you, a lot -- “

There’s a heavy knock on his door, not from a hand but something heavier, and they both freeze. “Get in the bedroom, close the door,” Leonard whispers, and Spock darts off into the darkness while Leonard goes to the door, but doesn’t open it. “Who’s there?”

“This is Saikus,” the oldest, most experienced husband answers in his deep, heavily accented voice; he’s seen more combat than any of the others and Leonard’s pretty sure that Saikus could snap him like a twig. “You have Spock. We know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leonard replies through the door, wishing he had his phaser out here, and not the bedroom. “I’m about to go to sleep, can you--”

That heavy knocking again. Leonard steps back in time before the door is pushed off its hinges across the floor, and six men stream into his quarters: searching, pushing furniture, two ultimately going for the bedroom. He tries to stop them, but they move too fast, forcing open the door.

He sees two bright blasts of light, then hears the crash of another window. 

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself, and while the others rush to the bedroom to find out what happened, Leonard rushes out of his quarters, because he already knows and fears the worst. He runs down the hall, down the curving sandstones steps, and then out into the garden; he sees Spock scrambling run out of a large swath of white sand and gravel, once beautifully raked, now splattered with blood from where the broken glass has cut against Spock’s face, his arms, his chest, the hand where he clutches Leonard’s phaser.

Above, he sees the swirling white lights of the shuttle, slowly descending to the land outside the gates. 

“Spock!” Leonard shouts across the garden. Spock snaps to attention, looking to him as he stumbles out of the gravel. “Get to the shuttle!”

Leonard’s running, too; he doesn’t turn and look but he can hear the rush of sandaled feet against smooth stone, then the rough boulevard, and now Leonard knows more than anyone else in the universe what Vulcan capabilities are, and he knows they can run faster than he can. 

He looks up ahead and he sees Spock standing at the narrow passage before the gates, looking down the long line of his arm as he aims the phaser in Leonard’s direction.

“Fuck,” Leonard says again, breathless and panting now, and watches a bolt zip over his shoulder. Someone hits the ground, hard, but Leonard still doesn’t look. Two more shots barely miss grazing Leonard, aiming for the men behind him, but those miss, and Leonard feels like he’s trying to outrun a tsunami by the time he gets to the gate.

“C’mon,” he pants, and Spock fires another shot before hurrying Leonard down the narrow passage to the gates - part of the lattice has been chiselled away against the wall, just big enough for a man to fit through.

If it weren’t for months of boiled vegetables and hot weather, Leonard doubts he would have fit through.

The shuttle lands, kicking up a cloud of dust that Leonard has to squint, but he sees the door, the void where there was a wall, and he grabs Spock’s arm through the dust cloud and pulls him, stumbling, into the shuttle, before slamming his hand against the door switch. The pilot, the same as before, stares agape at both of them - Leonard at the controls and Spock on the grated metal floor, before Leonard yells at him, “LEAVE!”

The pilot nods wordlessly, and the shuttle lifts off the ground just as someone, something starts to pound on the door - but Leonard doesn’t look. He sits down, he helps Spock up, he looks at the scrapes and cuts Spock has from the glass window.

He coaxes Spock to let go of the phaser, to release his trembling grip, before setting it aside. “You’re safe now,” he murmurs to Spock, pulling him gently to sit next to him. “We’re safe.”

Spock seems to curl in on himself, elbows on his knees and hunching over, still shaking enough for Leonard to feel it through that hand on his back. “...my apologies.”

“You got nothin’ to be sorry for, Spock,” Leonard says, rubbing his back gently.

“I do.” Spock takes a deep breath, straightens up a little, calmer. “I have sabotaged your entire report. You will never get those papers back--”

Leonard laughs. “Spock, look at me,” he says, and Spock hesitates before glancing up at him. “The report is fine. Trust me. Starfleet won’t mind.”

“Are you certain?”

“No, but if they have a problem, I have a lot more to tell them than I wrote down, anyway.” Leonard sighs, leaning back, his hand moving up to rub the back of Spock’s neck. “The question is, what’ll they do with you?”


End file.
